Requiem
by Stelmarya
Summary: Or, the life journey of a dirty, sullied girl that was once named Rukia, from the glint of a broken glass to the blinding light of the Sōkyoku, from childhood to adulthood. What are we made of but hunger and rage, after all?


**Disclaimer**: I don't own any of this. God knows the ending would've been different.

**TW:** direct references of child and sexual abuse, suicide thoughts and canon violence. Please be safe.

English is not my first language. I apologize for the mistakes in advance.

* * *

_ REQUIEM_

* * *

'You don't ask people with knives in their stomachs what would make them happy; happiness is no longer the point. It's all about survival; it's all about whether you pull the knife out and bleed to death or keep it in...'

Nick Hornby, _How to Be Good_

* * *

The girl understands she's a girl for the first time when she sees herself in the glint of a broken piece of dirty glass lit by the sun. A sullied, round, tiny face glances back, dirty like a pig and teeth chipped.

_Oh_, she thinks. Then she puts that piece of glass in her pocket; it's a highly effective weapon when one knows how to use it.

She already has a pretty complete collection inside the pockets of her yukata, because she has just escaped the stranglehold of Sawada for the second time, and she knows they're looking for her. She isn't going to let them catch her; she'd rather cut her own throat with that glass. God knows she's still recovering from the last punishment they inflicted on her; she can't pee or squeeze her thighs without feeling pain yet.

She understands she is a girl, and therefore a soul, but that's as far as she can go. She doesn't have a name, doesn't have a home; she just goes from place to place, surviving on savagery and instinct. Sometimes she wonders why.

_Maybe I'd matter if I had a name_, she muses as she hides in her corner at the alley; it took her some time, but she managed to make a hole by removing pieces of wall at the bottom of that alley, where light cannot touch the shadows, and there she can rest and sleep at will. She's so small and skinny she fits perfectly; a true street rat.

She would like to have a name, but there's no one that could give her one, and it doesn't make sense to give one to herself. She stays there, cuddled, not moving at all. In that alley there is violence: beatings between adults, between children and especially adults to children; she even witnesses a rape, but she doesn't move, because she knows she cannot take any of them and she wants to _live_, even though she doesn't know why, even though sometimes death seems like a divine gift compared to the hell she lives at that moment. She falls asleep with that thought, of her body laying on the street, as her stomach rumbles in pain and her soul, in loneliness.

.

Some time later (maybe some months, maybe some years, it's impossible to know there) the girl is given a name, and she never again feels as happy as in that moment, so _whole_.

The woman who gives it to her is named Hana, because in her youth she had been as beautiful as a flower, but at that point she isn't anything more than a withered, rotten old lady, wrinkled to the point of exaggeration, who doesn't have anything better to do with her life than take care of rotten, orphaned children. The girl had been at the blink of starvation, so desperate for food she had swallowed the little grass she had been able to find, and the water she drank smelt like piss with shit and rotten eggs. She had begged anyone who walked around for food, some water, crumbs, _anything_. Most of them had ignored her, for there were hundreds of kids like her on the streets, but some souls looked at her bloated stomach with pity, but they had nothing to give her. No one in the Inuzuri had anything to give to sickly, starved children who wouldn't be missed by anyone at the end of the day.

No one, except Hana.

The woman glances at her, hands tucked inside the sleeves of her faded kimono, and she takes her to her Hole. In other circumstances the girl would've fought, because she knows at first hand what some adults want to do with children, but she doesn't have the strength to talk, much less to fight. Every intention of running away disappears once Hana gives her a breadcrumb, tiny, but eternal to her. It's the first time in her life she has eaten bread, and she swallows it with feral anxiety, looking at the other children tucked inside The Hole, all like her, with empty eyes, bodies like sticks and clothes full of holes. Some are laying down on cots, other sitting in groups, and some come and go with things, older than the rest.

It's a true rathole and the girl feels terrified in the enclosed room, but she knows deep down that, for another breadcrumb, she will do anything, even if she can't pee again, even if the bitter taste of men stays in her mouth forever. To starve is _unbearable_.

"You can stay 'ere as long as ya want," Hana tells her after introducing herself, pouring her some water in a broken cup. She drinks it at once. "Everyone 'ere is like ya, everyone needs a home and a family. Ya'll always be welcomed 'ere."

And such is Hana's compassion, her infinite kindness to orphans no one else want, that the kids protect her with unimaginable ferocity. The older ones steal goods and water to store in The Hole while the younger ones recover from all kinds of ailments on those cots; there are even some babies, scrawny and filthy, who learn how to walk between the wooden table and the legs of the most patient kids. The girl doesn't have that kindness in her heart, she doesn't have anything there, so she devotes herself to steal, learns from the rest of the kids, develops the same loyalty to her as the rest, even if she doesn't want to at first. She remembers fragments of her life when she was even younger, being taken care of as a baby by an old hag just like Hana and being sold by that same old lady to Sawada, like the rest of the girls at that place. She doesn't want to trust anyone, betrayal would kill her, but time passes and Hana's love doesn't fade away: it stands as steady and strong as the ground beneath her feet.

The girl stays there for a long time, the best years she can remember, and she gets her name after defending two young kids from men like Sawada, receiving severe stabs, but coming out alive from the fight. It's not the first time it happens; she is already gaining the dubious reputation of being one of the fiercest rats, but that incident marks Hana's heart.

"You're their light, child," the old lady tells her while bandaging her injuries, and she gives her sake, to endure the pain.

"Their light?"

"You protect 'em, guide 'em. We all love ya so much," She finishes her healing and stares at her for some moments. She shifts in her seat, always uncomfortable being the focus of attention, and fights the urge to stand up. She wants to go and rest for some hours before going out again for some food; she has a half-laid plan, and a few weeks ago they lost two of their best hunters. They need her.

She stands up to leave to her resting place, full of shabby blankets she stole herself, but the old woman puts a hand on her shoulder.

"Rukia," she says. The girl looks at her, intrigued.

"Rukia?"

"Ya told me a while ago ya didn't have no name," Hana's eyes are hard as steel, and there's no hint of blindness in them. She sees her like no one has ever done before in her life. "From now on your name will be Rukia, 'cuz you're our light. 'Cuz ya has always light us, and I doubt anyone out there'll be able to put out that spark of yours."

And from then on, the girl is still a girl, but she's Rukia too. Hana teaches her how to write her name, how to write many things, and how to read too, and for the rest of her stay there she wields her name like a Shinigami's sword, because she has a name and someone gave it to her, and therefore her existence is recognized and valued. For someone like her, in a place like this, it means the whole world.

.

An interesting fact: only the souls with spiritual power feel hunger. They need to feed it, so they are the only ones who need food. Thousands of them reach Soul Society; the Seireitei, less than ten percent of them.

Another interesting fact: the more spiritual power, the more Hollows it attracts. However, these beasts are not mindless. They attack at the most convenient time for them, when there are no Shinigami close by, and the highest the possible body count, the better for them.

Last interesting fact: there are no Shinigami in the Inuzuri.

.

Rukia arrives when it's already over. Nothing remains of The Hole, and there's blood, so much blood. She drops her jar full of water without caring one bit, feeling the water dampen her bare feet, and tries to find signs of life in that scarlet mess. The roof has collapsed, so she has to lift a lot of planks and wooden pillars before she's able to find the first body. It's from one of the babies, who had barely learnt how to walk some weeks before, and the right half of his body is missing. They had named him Kenzo.

She finds pieces of arms, legs, even half-eaten bodies, but she can only identify a few of them. From the dozens of children who had lived there, only some are whole, the rest is missing. There is no trace of Hana. Rukia hopes that at least the Hollows ate her after killing her, and that she was one of the first to go. The elder wouldn't have borne to see her children being eaten alive.

There is nobody left, so Rukia grabs what she can, creates an improvised bag with a yukata she finds on the floor, and leaves without looking back. And that's that.

.

She struggles at first living on her own again, but survival skills are deep-rooted in her blood, and she creates a small hole once more in another alley, bordering on the seventy-seven district. It's bigger than the one she had before being rescued by Hana, but not by much; she's also smarter, cleverer. She has learnt from the older kids, she has a name and the experience of hundreds of thefts under her belt. Her hatred to adults rivals her fear of them, and her feats grow bolder and bolder, worthy of a suicide wish.

Sometimes she dreams of Hana, of the other children that had become her pack. Sometimes she dreams of her days with Sawada and the unspeakable pain that comes with that kind of abuse. Rukia learns not to dream.

Children's street fights are almost as dangerous as the adults themselves, but she doesn't join no gang. She is and has always been a loner, and she doesn't like to work as a team. That, and the fact that she loathes the rest of the children. One day a gang catches her in the middle of a theft, grabbing her by the hair before she can run away. That thrashing almost left her unconscious, and then they throw her down to a dirty river from a bridge. After recovering, she takes revenge stabbing the leader in the eye, watching him blindly bleed out, and she moves to another area of the district. This kind of thing was as common in the farther district as distasteful to Rukia. She doesn't understand why they can't all create a gang and work together against their biggest enemies, the adults.

She doesn't understand it, and she wishes it could be different, but the world has never changed for the wishes of poor people. She learns to take beatings and take revenge so viciously the other street rats start avoiding messing with her; they reach a tentative truce. Each one on their side of the district, without sticking into the other one's territory.

One day she saves a kid from an mean, abusive old man, who was punching the child that had tried to steal an apple from him, because that's her habit and she doesn't want to disgrace the origin of her name. The boy's name is Rin, he's smaller than her and promptly decides to follow her everywhere with those big, grey eyes and hollow cheeks of his.

"We make a great team," he answers every time she asks him what the fuck is he doing chasing her like a shadow, smiling shyly. "Together we can form our own gang an' survive."

"I don' care 'bout no gangs."

"Then it's the two of us against the world. Together we'll always survive!"

And she lets him be, because she pities him a bit and because having warmth in those cold, rainy days and company in hunger its better than nothing. Rin doesn't have spiritual power, and therefore doesn't have to eat, but still he goes with her to steal, helps her and watches her back. She feels comfortable around him and takes care of him like a pupil, but never gets used to his presence, and with good reason.

Rin dies on a clear, sunny day, in the middle of a turf fight. She had been handling three brats at the same time, and he fought against one, a rat-faced boy. One punch had left Rukia stunned, she rolled on the ground, her eyes were full of dirt. They went to a house's roof to continue their fight; Rin followed them clumsily, trying to reach them, to be useful to her.

Pity he was always a better thief than climber.

One of their rivals kicked him in the face and sent him tumbling to the edge of the roof. She fought her way to him, but another girl grabbed her legs and left her eating bricks. Rin received yet another kick on the face, his eyes rolled back. The boy ended his attack pushing him to his death; they all saw how he fell right on his neck on a broken cart below. _Crunch_, and after that, nothing.

She couldn't bury his body, because the other children left her unconscious, and when she woke up Rin was no longer there. She stood there for a moment, silent, replaying the scene in her head over and over again.

Afterwards she cleans the blood on her face with the water of a sewer she finds nearby. She sees her own distorted reflection, a little face not so round anymore, teeth even more chipped. Then she grabs two pieces of glass from her hole, that's all she needs for the four of them, and abandons that corner forever, searching for the quartet.

She finds them, and then she can't remove all that blood from her yukata. She has to steal another one after that.

.

Meeting Renji and his gang marks a before and after in her life, because she has never dared to take part of a group before. She doesn't know what is it that draws her to them: maybe it's their impressive collective ability to survive anything, unlike The Hole and Rin himself; maybe it's the hatred they hold against that hell, as fiery as her own; maybe it's the fact that Rin did leave an imprint in her soul, and she can no longer bear the loneliness and solitude.

With her new street gang, she doesn't have to worry about beatings anymore, because the others also run away with her and protect her. And it's different from the other gangs, because they don't go walking around defending their 'territory', they don't beat weaker children to death just because. Instead they sit around a creaking fire, taking a break from life, making up dumb stories and stupid jokes. They even manage to make Rukia smile, the smile of a starved girl.

She knows Renji is jealous of her, she feels his glares on her nape, but she doesn't say anything, because there is nothing to feel jealous about. Since that day on the hole, with pieces of children everywhere and the smell of guts and death, she hasn't dare to use her spiritual power. She imagines Hollows chasing her, watching her with those awful white masks, chewing one of her arms and tearing her apart in five neat pieces.

What is so special about a power that causes you excruciating hunger, that attracts all kind of beasts, that is useless unless you go and train in the Seireitei?

"We could go," Renji tells her one afternoon, watching her create a ball of energy, while the others are fishing in the cleanest river of the district. "We'd train hard, and then we could protect Reo, Haruto and Touma. No adult would dare to come close."

"They wouldn't let 'em in," she replies without turning back, letting her sphere vanish in the air. "Besides, by the time we graduate we'd necessarily have to become Shinigami. We wouldn't see them no more, and they'd eventually forget us."

"We would never forget ya!" Touma screeches, outraged, shaking a fish at them. They laugh and eventually forget about it, but that idea never leaves her mind.

To be a Shinigami. What a fucking madness.

.

Rukia dreams about stars, swords and uniforms, and wakes up with hunger, misery and dead bodies.

The first to die is Haruto, and in the stupidest possible way. The idiot slips on a wet spot while they were running away from an old hag they had just stolen two loaves of bread from. He skids easily for a few seconds, eyes wide open. Then he falls sideways, and his neck mkes the same sound against the ground that Rin did against the cart: _crunch_. For a moment they are all stunned, watching the corpse incredulously, even the old lady, who probably never had the intention of strangling them, just thrashing them a bit.

A few seconds. The sound of a chicken clucking at the end of the street. Rukia is the first to react, sending the women the biggest ball she can create, with the full force of her power and rage. The old lady flies backwards, crashing against a vegetables shop and completely destroying the place while they grab Haruto's body. The old lady never wakes up again, just like Haruto. They bury him on a hill, because the boy had always liked sunrises and sunsets, and for the next few months they laugh nervously at the incident, hiding their pain with humor.

"He must be dying of laughter, wherever he is," Renji says, trying to cheer them all.

"Yeah," she whispers, remembering Haruto's bulging eyes, moments before his demise. _Dying of laughter_.

The next one is Touma, several years afterwards, when Rukia already has some cleavage and they tower over her. The old lady from so many years before didn't have murderous intentions; the old man at that moment does and proves it quite clearly with that butcher knife in his hands. He reminds Rukia of her old self, that excessive rage in her eyes for a relatively normal offense; they hadn't even stolen that much from him.

The four of them run to a less crowded place, away from the market, hoping that the man gives up and goes back to his stand, but that never happens. It turns out that trader has better aim than they'd thought, and the knife goes through Touma's skull with unprecedented force in the middle of his sentence. It stabs him from behind and exits from his left eye, and he has the same surprised expression as Haruto, as if death had caught him off-guard.

They fight the man between the three of them, crazy with grief, but they defeat him by pure luck. Rukia and Reo are quite injured, and it has to be Renji who kills him, neatly slicing his throat.

And that is how Reo ends up passing away too. They had been pretty beaten up as they buried Touma next to Haruto, but that isn't new. They have always been injured, they have always recovered. That time shouldn't have been an exception.

They heal themselves with the same old plants, with bandages they had stored over the years, but Reo continues complaining for the next few months about pain in his hand, in his chest, in every place where he had been cut. They put more herbs, created oils, they even triy to cure him using spiritual pressure, but it's all for nothing. His wounds go from red to purple, and then to black. The smell they discharge on his last moments is unbearable, and they stop removing his bandages. Reo fights bravely, he endures the pain with that stoicism he has developed over the years, but the moment comes where there are no more robberies, no more escapes and laughter around a fire. He dies between excruciating fevers and the stench of putrefaction as he hallucinated with ghost and ducks.

"Don't forget 'bout the ducks," he says, watching at the sky without really seeing. "They like apples, ya gotta give it to 'em. Don't forget 'bout the ducks."

His body is swollen with pus when they bury him, but they endure the stink with a knot on their throats, carving the wood with their finest penmanship.

And that's how the two of them end up alone. They end up on a hill watching the sunset, next to the three corpses of their three friends rotting beneath them for all kinds of reasons, for bad luck and bad intentions and a bad life.

_I hate this place_, she thinks with maddening loathing, as the wind stirred her long hair. She turns to Renji and ends up speechless at seeing him so tall, lanky and permanently frowning. When did they grow up so much? Has time really passed so quickly she didn't notice? _I hate this. I can't take it anymore._

"Renji," she says, turning to watch the sunset against. She's _done_. "Let's become Shinigami."

A pause; wind blowing even stronger, pulling her newly stolen yukata.

"Yeah," he says behind her, and she feels her skin crawling. The end of an era and the beginning of another. "Let's become Shinigami."

.

To be in the Academy is another level entirely, and she struggles to adapt those first few months. She hasn't written or read anything in a long time, so she has to practice again what Hana taught her years ago, and she doesn't know even half of the kanjis. Her control on her spiritual power is outstanding, but her swordsmanship is mediocre at best, and many times she has to stay back and practice some extra hours, memorizing by rote the characters, practicing her terrible handwriting, for her teachers had complained they weren't able to read a single sentence of hers.

_Hanaoka Rukia_, she proudly signs on every paper, in honor of the wrinkled, withered old lady that turned her into a soul, that gave her an identity.

_Abarai Renji,_ he signs not so proudly, never willing to say how he got his name, no matter how much she pestered him about it.

They sign with their best handwriting, next to the perfect penmanship of the nobles around them. They learn how to eat delicately by watching their surroundings, not like the starved dogs they actually are. Hinamori gifts Rukia second-handed kimonos that she mends and wears full of gratitude; Kira teaches her how to add and subtract, some basic etiquette and brings them homemade food from his family, always warm.

Rukia has it all: food that isn't stolen or rotten, a roof over their heads, clean uniforms that fit, the respect of their peers for their hard work, despite the fact they were nobodies, without a true last name or family.

Rukia has it all, but the hole in her heart is still there, eating her from the inside, despite the fact that her life with her gang had managed to patch it up a bit, and feels more and more lonely as Renji adapts and succeeds, showing his strength and natural talent, while she stays behind, struggling to make a single friend besides him, struggling to make her small body, skinny after years of starvation, meet the Academy's standards.

_Why does it always have to be so hard_, she thinks one night, laying on her futon. Her roommates' breathing keeps her company every night, and she never stops feeling squeezed, suffocated, like those first days at The Hole. She turns over and buries her face against her pillow, feeling the burn on her lungs due to the lack of air. She sees stars even with her eyes closed, and when everything seems to fade, when her whole body demands air at all costs, she raises her head and breathes in, cooling her entire soul.

That rush of air before death is always the sweetest, after all.

.

She arrives to the Kuchiki mansion with a grand total of zero possessions with her, tiny next to captain Kuchiki Byakuya and the clan's elders. They give her a room three times bigger than The Hole, all to herself, and there are already clothes in her closet when she inspects her chamber. The fabric is so soft and costly she's afraid of wearing them; she doesn't dare to touch anything that looks valuable.

"You cannot go around walking like that, child," one of the elders tells her, the only one that actually acknowledges her, while giving her a blue kimono with a gray floral pattern. "You look like a peasant with those rags you are wearing."

_I am a peasant_, she answers in her mind, removing the only thing that is hers in that house, the last kimono Hinamori gave before graduating. The new fabric is heavy on her shoulders, something that symbolizes her situation quite well, but she never complains. They cut and clean her nails, fix her hair, show her the main parts of the mansion, those places where she can and can't be. Kuchiki Byakuya is noticeably absent in this whole process.

"He adopted you because you are very similar to his late wife. You are identical, to the last detail," they tell her constantly at her doubtful questions, pushing her around while she keeps her mouth closed and lets them be. "The least you can do to repay his kindness is to behave like a proper noble lady."

He adopted her because she looks a lot like his dead wife; you don't have to be a genius to know what that means. Rukia waits every night for an unwanted presence in her room, feverish of sweat and fear. She waits for illicit contacts around the halls when she walks with him, she waits for him to corner her and force her to do what a man did many years ago, before she was Rukia and before she was a girl.

It never comes.

Her new brother doesn't even deign to look at her in the face, much less grope her; one afternoon she stars to count, and the man is easily capable of saying less than four words every day.

_If he had wanted to sleep with me, he would've married me_, she thinks, and that raises her spirits. His reason seems illogical and inconsistent to her, but the luxuries she has in her new life are completely superior to her old one like the sky is to earth. She knows she is clumsy, coarse and rough, so she works hard to be a well-mannered lady; she learns to talk as she must, to dress as she must, to serve tea as she must, to _exist_ as she must.

The day comes when she works so hard the clan's elders and members from other families cannot find anything to criticize, so they stick with disdainful silences and short glances, but the sign of approval from her brother never comes. He never says anything to her, neither good nor bad, and sometimes she wants to screw it all, to see if that creates some kind of reaction in him, but the terror she feels when she's around him crushes those ideas as quickly as they come.

There's something in Kuchiki Byakuya that is as terrifying as her life in the Inuzuri, a ruthless harshness born from an emptiness as big as hers. There is no mercy in him, no sense of affection or warmth that she can detect, and she somehow cares for him. Reverences him. That kind of inhumanity can only be obtained out of pain, she knows it well, and she feels proud of being in the same side of someone like that. She knows what to expect from him, even if it hurts, even if she knows she will never be valued or acknowledged there for the rest of her life, and she manages to feel a rusty affection towards him.

Her days as a Shinigami are not as fruitful, and she spends long, monotonous afternoons watching her division comrades strengthen ties between each other while isolating her for her favoritism, for her clearly inferior knowledge and power. The only one who seems to consider her a worthy soul is lieutenant Shiba, and she's grateful for his presence every single day, because sometimes she doesn't know what's worse: to not have an identity, or have it and not being acknowledged by any single person in her life.

_Kuchiki Rukia,_ she signs, and she wonders who is that person who moves the brush and bears that name. She doesn't know who she is anymore, and neither where is the spark that Hana saw. Maybe the old lady lied. Maybe it finally died, after all.

.

Interesting fact: many years later, Rukia would read a very entertaining saga from the real world, as bloody as dramatic as the Inuzuri, and there is a phrase that left her thinking for a long time, because she felt the words in her soul and bones: _'If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention'_.

Another interesting fact: Rukia didn't eat for five days after Shiba Kaien's death. She refused over and over to go to the dining room, and, in an unusual act of compassion, Byakuya indulged her. They eventually found her unconscious on her futon, eyes blank and face with frozen tears, stuck to her flesh, created by her spiritual power. They had to force the food down her throat for a week before she could find the strength to move.

Last interesting fact of this story: to survive is not the same as to live, no matter what people say. Sometimes one reaches a point where moving the atoms of your body is not even existing, and one has to know when is the time to stop fighting, pack your stuff and write your epitaph. It was a pity Byakuya foresaw that outcome and kept her under suicide surveillance for so long, she ended up being friends with her guard. And yet, sometimes she couldn't avoid watching heights with melancholy, glancing at the abyss and wondering…

.

She knows there is something different about that brat when he faces that Hollow with no fear, or rather, full of fear, but even fuller of bravery and courage. She sees herself in him, saving dozens of unwanted children all over the Inuzuri, facing recklessly anyone who stood in her way, even if she didn't know the victim.

Rukia extends her arm, talks and looks at the boy in the eye. There's only one moment of doubt in her heart (_I'm really not getting out of this shit alive_), but she discards it easily. _Bring it on_. The boy takes the chance, and, for a small, tiny moment, she thinks they're not going to make it, that it's all over, but he takes almost all her spiritual power, and she watches him defeat the Hollow stunned, weakened. She has never felt as empty and full as in that moment.

Kurosaki Ichigo is certainly unlike anyone she has ever met, and both his impertinence and nerve rival those of Kaien himself. Even Renji in their youth had been moderate, knowing his own physical and social limitations, and now that he's a lieutenant she can't imagine the kind of person he has become. But Ichigo? That human brat has the firm belief he can fight his way out of anything, and the worst thing is that, in most occasions, it works. There's a gap in his heart, that's true, but his sister, father and friends help him heal it. Rukia is left speechless for a few moments when she realizes she's also included in that group.

When was the last time she was included in something real, tangible? When was the last time she had been truly appreciated and welcomed in a group? The Kuchiki clan, the Thirteenth Division, that is what awaits her back in Soul Society. And yet right there, in a small town, a group of children a hundred times younger than her include her in their activities and conversations as if she has always been there with them. Ichigo, Rukia, Orihime, Sado, Keigo, Ishida, Mizuiro and Tatsuki, those crazy nutheads from Karakura High School.

They care for her so much, just a few weeks later they risk their lives to save her from an inevitable destiny, even if they understand absolutely nothing about that reality, even if she was only with them for two months. Rukia cries when she finds out they're there, and there's not a single moment where she regrets having transferred her powers to Ichigo.

During those long nights waiting for her execution, watching the sunset from her cell, she even thinks it's the best thing she has done in her whole fucking life.

.

Even though Ichimaru manages to disturb her greatly, Rukia recovers when her execution begins. Her last wish goes to the friends who never abandoned her, who went so far just for her, and her soul heals when she's reassured that they'll leave Seireitei safe and sound.

She examines her life in those few minutes, remembers as fast as she can, and decides there's nothing else to do. Her whole life she has done what she can, she has fought for what she believed, she has worked hard to impress other people so her existence can be recognized, rarely with success. She has loved, suffered, saved lives, and felt what true friendship is like. The fact that her own brother condemns her in her final day helps her inner tranquility.

_I ain't have no regrets_, she thinks as she's lifted in the air, watching the whole Seireitei from her spot. _I leave in peace._

And somehow, she sees herself reflected on that infernal bird that aims at her. She sees her round face, clean and well-kept, with shiny eyes and the demeanor of a lady. And, for a moment, time goes backwards and she's no longer Kuchiki Rukia or Hanaoka Rukia or Rukia, but a haggard, sullied girl who sees her own self for the first time in the glint of a broken piece of dirty glass. And time remains stagnant there, in a full circle, while that girl who was named Rukia closes her eyes, hiding from the blinding light of the Sōkyoku that is engulfing her, listening, at last, her own requiem.

* * *

And all of this came from the fact that Rukia means 'light', eh.


End file.
